


Lab Coats

by luvkirby4ever



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Loss, Symbolism, comradery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 21:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10369467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvkirby4ever/pseuds/luvkirby4ever
Summary: As it turns out, Hilbert really hates white lab coats.Plus, incident reports, the Bob Ross initiative, sepsis-induced MODS, and the inevitable erasure of death.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scipiocipher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scipiocipher/gifts).



> Dedicated to scipiocipher, whose single text post about coloring Hilbert's lab coats sparked the idea for this story. Thanks for the unintentional writing prompt.
> 
> Wolf 359 is the creation of Gabriel Urbina. Gabriel and the rest of the Wolf 359 crew are the ones who made the original story possible- I own nothing but an overactive imagination.

In the beginning, there was white.

He could barely remember a time before them- the scientists- swarming with their bleached coats and sterile gloves, mumbling things he didn't understand. There were shouts and touching, poking and wrapping, medicine and pain. He was sick. _They_ were sick. But who were they, again?

A boy and a girl lay nearby each other, dressed in white scrubs upon white beds surrounded by white walls and white-clad doctors. They were crying for some reason. They had lost something... no- _somebody_. Multiple somebodies?

He couldn't remember.

Soon, there were less doctors. Despite the blood and bile they still dressed like snowmen, the scientists' jackets as white as the children's hair. Back when they still had any. The doctors were telling them that it was time to go home as they talked in hushed tones about more things he couldn't understand.

Something about money.

They never did return home. He couldn't quite picture it, though he knew that it wasn't to wherever they were now. A snowy cat curled up against his sister's misshapen leg as they tried to understand the strange man on the television. It seemed one white was traded for another as they never saw the doctors anymore.

Which was weird because he still felt sick.

His sister was obviously sick. At first it seemed like her growth was stunted... until it stopped altogether. Her limbs were curling and cutting off in places they shouldn't, her movements were limited to sitting up and petting the cat, and she hardly spoke anymore. Even so, she wasn't getting any treatment sessions.

Eventually, they stopped giving her medicine altogether.

He spent his days reading by his sister's side, struggling to understand complicated words on white paper. It seemed to impress people that he was reading such dry and difficult material at his age. To his frustration, they were more concerned with his ability to read than with the purpose for which he read.

There was somebody at the door.

The doctor navigated his way through the room, following the boy to the bed. His sister lay, surrounded in white: the white of the pages, the cat, the man's coat, even her pillow. The man looked her over for a moment.

"Is... is alive?" The boy asked quietly in broken English.

"I'm not sure."

And in that moment he had laid one more thing by his sister's side- a white lie.

For that was the day Olga died.

 

* * *

 

At last, the heart rate monitor flatlined. Dr. Selberg turned to the bedside table covered in notes and checked his watch. He found a clean piece of paper and began to write:

 _Kuan Hui_  
_Time of death: 03:59_  
_Cause of death:_

He paused for a moment.

_Sepsis-induced MODS_

Complete organ failure, caused by the body's attempt to destroy the Decima virus.

Selberg sighed. There were no attempts for resuscitation, no hurried movements, no furious cursing, no surprises- even Hui had realized that he was going to die. It was only a matter of time.

He laid a white sheet over the body- he would ask the captain about a body bag later when she was awake. It was already four in the morning, after all. He began cleaning up the area- peeling off his gloves, washing his hands, gathering his notes- when his eyes fell to his chest.

The front of his lab coat was soiled with blood and other unfavorable liquids. He rarely noticed when it happened; he had always been too engrossed in his work to notice when his clothes collected stains. This time was no different.

He stripped off his coat, placing it aside to be cleaned. Soon all of the stains would be washed away, leaving it perfectly white. He would continue his research and it would become soiled, only for it to return to the wash pile again. And so it will continue on in a perfect cycle of soiling and cleansing, forevermore.

Ideally.

He looked back across the room to the body. With death Hui exited this cycle, leaving whatever passions that preceded the final gasps of his life to die with him. All of the blood and color and traces of purpose Hui had left behind will fade to white, never to stain anything ever again.

Such is the inevitable erasure of death.

Selberg turned away from the body, grabbing his papers as he headed for the door. There is no time to dwell on the dead. There never was.

He didn't look back as the door shut behind him. There was too much work to do to fill his mind with subjective nonsense, too much work to entertain the ideas on the edge of his mind that whispered:

_I hate the color white._

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to:  
> scipiocipher (.tumblr.com), for the idea and whose enthusiasm motivated me  
> colonelkepler (.tumblr.com), for convincing me to make an AO3 account  
> wordstomyears (.tumblr.com), for offering to help read this over and for the idea about seasonal lab coats  
> subsequentibis (.tumblr.com), for providing visual inspirations with your art  
> and the Wolf 359 team, for making Wolf 359 a story worth writing a fanfic about


End file.
